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In this episode of China Considered Quick Takes, Elizabeth Economy, Hargrove Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, examines a deceptively simple question: What does China want? As Xi Jinping claims the world is undergoing “great changes unseen in a century,” Economy argues that it is the United States—under a newly articulated global vision from Donald Trump—that is now driving the most consequential shifts in the international system.
Economy challenges the familiar assumption that US retrenchment inevitably creates space for China to step in as global leader. Beijing, she explains, does not seek to become the world’s policeman or to replicate America’s record of foreign aid and global stewardship. Instead, Xi Jinping has five clear objectives: 1) reclaiming disputed territory, 2) displacing the United States in the Asia-Pacific 3) dominating global technology and economic power, 4) reshaping the geostrategic landscape, and 5) setting the rules in emerging frontier domains. Economy argues that Xi’s vision shapes up for China to have all the rights, but not all the responsibilities of being a global superpower.
Transcript
Welcome to an other episode of China Considered Quick Takes. I am Elizabeth Economy, Hargrove Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Today, I want to talk about, “what China wants.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping is fond of saying that the world is undergoing great changes unseen in a century. Usually, he ascribes those changes to Russia or to China.
But today, I think it’s the United States that’s driving those changes.
President Trump has articulated a new vision for a US role on the global stage, one that translates into reducing US political, economic, and military commitments, while projecting US economic and military force in new and sometimes unsettling ways.
All of this has brought back an argument that was popular during President Trump’s first term, “that as the United States withdrew from its traditional role as a leader on the global stage, China was ready to stand up and fill the vacuum.”
I didn’t think it was going to happen then, and I don’t think it’s going to happen now. Largely because it’s not what China wants. China doesn’t want to be the world’s policeman, and it certainly doesn’t want to try to live up to the past US record of leadership in foreign aid.
So what does China want? Or perhaps more accurately, what does Xi Jinping want for China?
I think Xi has five objectives for China that are designed to transform the international system and China's place within it.
First, Xi Jinping wants China to reclaim the territory that it considers to be its sovereign territory. In the first instance, this means Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the South China Sea. But all told, China has territorial conflicts with 10 countries. China wants to reclaim this territory and make itself whole again.
Second, China wants to replace the United States as the dominant power in the Asia Pacific. Xi Jinping talks often about Asia is for Asians to govern. And by that, he doesn’t mean India or Japan, he means China to lead. He certainly doesn’t mean the United States. Much as President Trump doesn’t want China in the US backyard, Xi Jinping doesn’t want the United States in what he considers to be China’s backyard.
Third, Xi Jinping wants China to be the dominant technology and global economic power.
Fourth, he wants China to reshape the geostrategic landscape in ways that align it with China’s interests. He wants China to provide the political, economic, and technological foundations of the 21st century, much in the same way that Europe and the United States did for the 19th and 20th centuries.
And finally, Xi Jinping wants to set the rules and claim leadership in what he calls frontier domains: space, the Arctic, the deep sea, cyberspace, and the global financial system.
This all shapes up for China to have the rights, but not the full responsibilities of being a global superpower. Will it succeed? Tune in to the next episode of China Considered Quick Takes as I begin to assess the opportunities and challenges for China as it pursues its transformative global vision.
Elizabeth Economy is the Hargrove Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Named by Politico as among “the ten names that matter in China policy,” Economy served as senior adviser for China in the US Department of Commerce in 2021–23 and is the author of several influential books on Chinese politics and policy, most recently The World According to China.